Police probe of CPS widens after baby's death

Tiffany Klapheke is jailed on three counts of child abuse.(AP Photo/Taylor County Sheriff's Office, File)

Police investigators seized computers, cell phones and files from Texas Child Protective Services offices in Abilene on Tuesday as part of a widening probe into accusations that top officials directed workers to withhold child abuse files and photographs from law enforcement after the death of a child.

The rare action against one of the state's largest agencies comes six weeks after Abilene police discovered 22-month-old Tamryn Klapheke dead of dehydration and her two sisters barely alive inside a Dyess Air Force Base home on Aug. 28.

The three are believed to have been essentially abandoned for at least a week by their mother, Tiffany Klapheke, now jailed on three counts of child abuse.

But it's the behind-the-scenes action, in which police said CPS workers were told by super­visors not to cooperate with officers investigating the case, that now takes center stage and could affect hundreds of other cases in the Abilene region.

"The evidence suggests that the conduct being investigated predates the Klapheke investigation," Chief Stan Standridge told the Houston Chronicle, which reported Monday that a CPS investigator quietly closed a previous case involving Tamryn and her sister six days before the girls were found.

Inexplicably, CPS caseworker Claudia Gonzalez closed the case without visiting the family a final time and did so without a supervisor's signature, which is a firing offense under CPS rules. She has since resigned.

"In the ensuing days following the death of the child, the department became aware of instances in which CPS employees were told by supervisors not to cooperate with law enforcement," Standridge told reporters Tuesday.

The search warrant affidavit details suspicions that CPS regional administrator Bit Whitaker; program director Gretchen Denny, who has since relinquished that post and been reassigned; and CPS supervisor Barbara McDaniel, who was later reprimanded by CPS; tampered with evidence involving the Klapheke investigation.

Specifically, the affidavit states that another CPS worker, Rebecca Tapia, "was ordered not to release any information or photographs to medical staff or law enforcement" after Tamryn's death and while investigators were at the hospital with the surviving sisters.

"Rebecca did not provide a photograph because she was directed by a supervisor not to provide a photograph," Standridge told the Chronicle.

According to the affidavit, Abilene detectives interviewed 12 CPS employees in the weeks since Tamryn's death and believe that several supervisors "have intentionally and knowingly concealed, altered or destroyed records and other documentation material to this investigation because of the damaging nature of the documents."

No one charged

McDaniel was interviewed Sept. 18 and according to the affidavit, she "lied" for several hours and ultimately admitted to giving the order not to share information.

Another person interviewed recounted several cases involving other police agencies in which "Gretchen Denny and Inv. Supervisor Barbara McDaniel had ordered investigators not to provide reports to law enforcement."

None of the three officials named in the affidavit, whom the police chief called suspects, have been charged. The Chronicle's attempts to contact the three Tuesday were unsuccessful.

A source close to the probe told the Chronicle top CPS officials had been warned this summer by the Taylor County district attorney about omitting data on court documents involving abused children who had been removed from their homes. Yet, one day after Tamryn's death, CPS' paperwork sent to prosecutors omitted details about previous investigations of the family.